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Sunday, March 8, 2015

How to Freeze Summer Squash for Frying Purposes

When freezing produce, a lot of folks think you just "throw it in a bag"
and simply freeze the stuff. While true for some things, like corn on
the cob, for example, it doesn't always work out for other items that
may be in your garden. I selected summer squash for this post because
not everybody uses it for healthy stews and various recipes, as some of
us like to bread and fry it!

When you freeze summer squash, whether you blanch it first or not, it
will thaw out in a soggy condition. This mushy stuff will usually not be
something that will bread and fry very effectively, and you may end up
with a scrambled mess, to say the least. However, there is a way to
freeze your squash for frying purposes, as I found this out by way of
trial & error.

Please note: This method takes a bit of time and space, so you can only
prepare so much at one time, in most cases. First, you slice your extra
squash into your desired degree of thickness for frying. From there, you
bread it (I use yellow corn meal and additional seasonings) as if you
were about to fry 'em up. Now, take a couple cookie sheets out (or
whatever works) and place every single slice of squash on the pans or
however many you can fit on there. Make sure that none of the squash
touches each other and quickly put them into your freezer. When they are
completely frozen, you can now put 'em all into freezer bags.

Since each slice froze individually, they will not stick together in the
freezer. Plus, they are already breaded for frying purposes. Now,
instead of worrying about them being too mushy to fry, you can drop them
into some hot oil later on while they are still frozen because you
don't have to wait until they thaw out to separate them for the breading
process. You see how easy this is? Hey, it works for me! Cheers!